I have recently begun some forex swing trading through IdealPro to compare it with to normal forex broker. The first few trades seemed fine and I was quite impressed until this extraordinary situation occurred last week. I was short a $50,000 position with a gtc stop loss order in place. The stop level was hit last Friday and I assumed the position had been closed. However, when I checked my statement over the weekend I saw that only $30,000 of the position had been closed and the $20,000 remained open. I phoned IB as soon as they opened the lines at 7am UK time on Monday morning to raise the matter. Upon investigation they realised that I had received a partial fill of $30,000 with a subsequent order for the balance of $20,000 automatically and immediately re-submitted. However, and here is the problem, because $20,000 is below the $25,000 threshold for IdealPro trades it was automatically rejected, leaving the order unfilled. So I was left in the trade with the price above (away from) my stop level. I couldn't even close the position manually. IB said they needed to clarify with the technical team and would call me back. They later did and confirmed that this indeed had happened and that their team was working to solve the glitch. I asked how they were going to rectify my position and I was told I would have to contact them in writing to seek compensation. I was astonished that having acknowledged the issue was entirely due to a fault their end they would not sort the issue out there and then by closing the position and crediting me the (at the time) very small loss due to the market price being a small amount above my original stop level. Instead, I had to write an email explaining the whole situation again, asking them to close the position and compensate me for any loss. I received a ticket number and have subsequently implored them to act as the position is now moving further and further against me. It is now Wednesday and the matter appears no closer to resolution. I accept that errors happen but I would have thought IB would have sorted this out once they realised what had happened. I would also advise that no one should use IdealPro until IB have given an assurance that this flaw has been resolved. And check your statements carefully as it is actually not at all obvious at first glance that this has happened as open IdealPro positions are not shown in the way they would be on any other fx platform I have used.
Can't you close out the position using IDEAL instead of IDEALPRO? Not an ideal solution (no pun intended!) but I don't think there's a minimum on IDEAL.
Yes Bob, having spoken to IB again this morning that is what I have now done. With hindsight this would have been better. However, once I had raised IB's mistake with them and emailed them to close the position etc (exactly as directed by their representative), I assumed they would be sorting the matter out. Oh how foolish of me. I have now had to incur a 140 pip loss and I am at their mercy for compensation. The loss when I first notified them of the issue would have been around 15 pips. You live and learn. If I made a mistake that cost a customer money I would make good the loss. If the customer alerted me to the error I would ensure it was resolved. The last thing I would do, having been notified of my mistake, would be to sit and watch the customer's loss growing without thinking to tell them that in fact they need to take extra steps (of which they are clearly unaware) because I'm not going to bother doing anything on their behalf. But I guess I wouldn't get very far in IB.
This sort of thing is always going to be a problem with order size limits using execution via a limit order book. IB should really get rid of the deal-size restrictions on IDEALpro and just use a commission structure to deter small orders. i.e orders less than 25K just get charged at a higher rate of commission.
That technical problem with IDEALPro shows that they could not care less, absolutely... And it also shows that the majority of their staff has never risked $1.00 USD notional in any trade or investment in their life. There are still technical improvements that were mentioned over 1 year ago that they have not fixed. How about this. If you have a stop order it automatically gets cancelled into the 1700 EST market closure. So there are no GTC limits/stops. Also, no OCO's, etc. And now, we will get a response from someone from IB. "Blah, blah, blah..." What do you guys do ALL DAY? What do you guys do ALL DAY? What do you guys do ALL DAY? What do you guys do ALL DAY? Answer: Count commissions! "Where are the customers' yachts?"
hope things will get resolved soon; it is pretty much pathetic and very unprofesssional of ib not to take care of your problem, this is a serious situation and any effort should be made to resove it in a hurry. best of luck.
IB really needs to consolidate its IDEALpro and IDEAL FX facilities so there is just one way of doing FX trades and currency conversions. Much more sensible to have a single currency trading facility with a commission structure tailored to the size traded.
There is something else you should watch out: A few weeks ago I had a limit order to get out of a USD.CHF position. The limit was hit and exceeded a few times, but I didn't get a fill!!! I cancelled the limit, and submitted a market order to get out. Still I got no fill!! I chatted with the customer service and they couldn't tell me what was happening. Anyway, everything went ok. After 5-10 minutes, one of my market orders got a fill and got out. That's VERY risky, and IDEALPRO should sort out its act or close down. Note: the above happened during a relatively quiet time, not during a news release. Imagine the horror during news...
TraderToney; let us know what the outcome with IB is ... That does sound like a very strange practice they have going there (and makes me concerned in regards to trading fx with IB).
It is actively being worked on. It isnt so simple. Banks dont want 5K orders. They don't really want 25K orders. Their target order is 1M. I think we are 2 months away from fully releasing a series of enhancements. 1 month if things go smoothly.